Ok in order to clear the air, I have decided to post a series of threads
where ideas on how to improve Lightwave can be posted in an organized fashion.
The idea is to provide an one stop place where developers (from Newtek, or independent)can come in and get ideas.

This thread along with its sister threads:

HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: Character Animation (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=175156)
HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: Dynamics (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=175161)
HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: Effects (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=175224)
HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: Layout (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=175167)
HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: Modeling (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=175149)
HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: Rendering (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=175166)
HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: SDK and plug-in development (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=175698)
HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: Interoperability with other apps (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=175697)
HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: Workflow (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=176496)
HOW TO IMPROVE LIGHTWAVE: Expressions (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=178670)

..will be used to provide input on ho to move Lightwave back into the forefront of CG graphics.

But in order to keep things positive (glass half full), and make it something
worth while, there are some rules for this thread:

1) STAY ON TOPIC:
Please dont provide rants, just provide your ideas.
2) NO BASHING:
No bashing Lightwave or any other app. I mean it.
3) LINKS:
If new research is pointed out, please provide links to it.
4) PROVIDE EXAMPLES:
Show us real life examples on how your idea would help you.
5) WORKFLOW
Please along with your comment, provide suggestions of how to
implement the concept or idea on the workflow. Workflow is one of the
things that make Lightwave what it is.
6) KEEP IT POSITIVE
The can do attitude is what made this community once great, cynicism is
killing it. Someone once told me "Optimism is an act of defiance".
Thanks,
-Roberto
PS Ill post the other threads later today.

Nemoid

10-11-2004, 06:49 AM

one of the first things to do to improve Lw workflow, is to organize better the UI. Lw 8 is not bad on this field, some things has been made, but here a couple of things to address :

1) pls, put in rendering option panel, all things related to rendering : AA, resolution and more. camera properties should be there, as a nested panel or something. or, even better u could duplicate those options to have at your disposal into 2 different places : rendering options amd camera properties too.

2) pls make plugs and shaders list consistent ! make Lw list them automatically in alphabetical order. plus 'i'd suggest a scrollbar on these often long lists so that we can choose plugs and shaders easily.

3) another little but annoying (for me) thing why the heck i have to go in the left lower area of modeler UI to deselect things with LMB ? i'd put the option to click on the viewport, or even better to click on bars wich separate viewports (some user couldn't like clicking on viewport.)no, don't tell me to use the keyboard shortcut, ok?

4) give us a better layer editor in modeler. be inspired by Photoshop way to manage layers with all the options it provides, plus give us good options to rename and number multiple layers and grops of layers, just as it happens to be in the great skelegon editor. pls do it!!

5) minor but important for final users let us easily store configs without the -c trick. just give us a panel from wich save and load configs, all things done automatically by the app.

6) do as above for all UI colors. give us options for them, and while u're here give us font UI options as well. possibility to store layouts (here workflow improvement returns, because users will be happy to use different UI layouts to work more confortable) and change them on the fly.

7) if u want to go sci-fi, give us weight maps painting for CA in layout. so rigging will work better, all in layout. great workflow improvement.

there are alot of things to suggest but i have no time so that's all for now. :scream:

Limbus

10-11-2004, 08:04 AM

I only have one whish for Wokflow improvement:
- integrate!

Florian

Fasty

10-11-2004, 08:21 AM

I've always enjoyed using Lightwave as two separate applications, until the day came where I had a cloud of points for a plane to fly through. How can you easily identify and delete/move individual points that are in the way of the plane's flight-path in Layout? Solve this connundrum and that would go a long way to improving Lightwave's workflow.

Sil3

10-11-2004, 09:24 AM

I only have one whish for Wokflow improvement:
- integrate!

Florian
Second that :thumbsup:

evenflcw

10-11-2004, 09:45 AM

I've always enjoyed using Lightwave as two separate applications, until the day came where I had a cloud of points for a plane to fly through. How can you easily identify and delete/move individual points that are in the way of the plane's flight-path in Layout? Solve this connundrum and that would go a long way to improving Lightwave's workflow.Make your pointcloud a particle emitter (Nozzle=Points), then move/delete whatever particle you want using Edit_FX. This is obviously only valid since LW8.

I'd like better layer management in modeler and would love to see some form of grouping in Layout, where you can assign settings (status, visibility, expressions, modifiers, etc) to the group master, and all children would inherit the setting.

Rabid pitbull

10-11-2004, 03:23 PM

I only have one whish for Wokflow improvement:
- integrate!

Florian
Totally agree, this would make 90% of lightwaves issues disappear. Come on newtek rewrite LW9!!!

Fasty

10-12-2004, 01:21 AM

Make your pointcloud a particle emitter (Nozzle=Points), then move/delete whatever particle you want using Edit_FX. This is obviously only valid since LW8.

Thanks evenflcw, I'm using 7.5d though and it's still a bit of a workaround.

tais

10-15-2004, 01:49 AM

· move the Parent in place to motion panel.

· remove the lw_rla and deluxe rla from the output coz they don't work. replace them with the RLA/RPF extented from the image process.

· Add a "Load Image" in "Image World"

· Replace the "additionnal" and "generic" with a plugin searcher that can find all plugin and tool (third party or internal) like a google search with case sensitive.

· merge the camera panel and the render options panel... i mean give the possibility to setup all data for a render in one panel.

· Group in Curent Item list! sometimes i must scroll a so big item list...

· Possibility to adjust the size of all panel from everywhere, not only bottom right like new scene editor...

· maybe more...( maybe i'm wrong on some parts, please tell me)

vonbon

10-30-2004, 03:55 PM

Voice activated tool selection. Its an idea

vonbon

10-30-2004, 03:59 PM

also be able to use the wheel part of the mouse to maybe change to different settings or axis etc., of the same tool while its activated.

dmaas

10-30-2004, 08:21 PM

This is going to sound controversial but-

I strongly recommend merging the .LWO and .LWS file formats into one unified format. So you could put points and polygons into "scene" files and keyframes and expressions into "object" files. LW started heading in this direction when they made object layers appear in Layout as independent items. This is the logical conclusion. It would help my workflow tremendously. This doesn't mean unifying Layout and Modeler; you could keep them separate, just unify the file formats.

telamon

10-31-2004, 08:48 PM

I agree, basically integration becomes necessary now... :buttrock:

My suggestion is that, optionnally, LW's integration should be in a way similar to what can be found in CAD programs. When you want to edit an object, you double click on it and that is fine, a new window pops up and you work in another environment.

SplineGod

11-01-2004, 12:08 AM

Lets see...
1. Make ALL popups have basic filtering functions. Right now its extremely painful to deal with long lists of items. The surface editor has some basic filtering functions.
2. Everything that can be changed should have an E and T button next to it.
3. Surfacing between standard surfaces and HVs should be the same. The same presets should be interchangeable.
4. Gradients should have the same input parameters no matter where theyre applied
5. Weight maps should have the same affect no matter where theyre applied. Weight maps do differnet things depending on where theyre applied. Consistancy!!
6. Have expressions available in only one place instead of 3 (GE, motion panel, displacement tab). Make the expressions work when they see the channel theyre referenceing appear rather then stick those ridiculous >> << signs in the expression. It makes it a pain to fix them. Relativity seems to handle this just fine. If you set up some expressions and the items or channels arent there they dont care. They start to work when those items or channels are loaded into the scene.
7. Displacements should all be available in the same place. Right now they are in the object properties panel or you have textured displacement, normal displacement and bump displacement - Consistancy again
8. Shadow options should be available in one panel. Right now you have 3 places where you have to change things to get shadows to work properly - Render panel, Light panel and object properties panel. This makes it hard for newbies to figure out and a pain to try and remember.
9. Get rid of bones. Any object should be able to be a bone. The same with lights. Let any object be a light source.
10. All motion or channel modifier should have the ability to be locally or globally applied and adjusted. A great example of this is IKBooster. You can easily apply settings to an item, all items, child items or parent items. I should be able to do so with things like follower. Let me be able to apply follower to an item or multiple items and apply offsets and so forth based on the beginning and end of my selections. This should work in the Graph Editor as well
11. Allow all motion modifiers and expressions to properly work with and see IK.
12. Instancing
13. Easily copy motions between items or heirarchies
14. Improve the HUB so that large objects or objects with lots of VMaps dont bog down or crash LW.
15. Make it possible to easily manually keyframe items that have expressions or modifiers attached to them.
15. Control panels that can be easily customised for things like facial controls, item selecting and so on.
16. Fix selection sets so that the ones in the classic scene editor and the new dopesheet see each other. Make them reloadable when loading from scene or just reloading the same scene.
17. Allow basic modeling functions in layout
18. Allow Point Level Animation and allow the points to show up in the GE individually or in groups.
More to come.... :)

archiea

11-01-2004, 09:19 AM

building on what you said Splinegod...

beef up the scene editor to include a bird's eye view of the light assignments and shadow assignments. We use this at the studio I work at in Maya.

So SplineGod, imagine you have an interior scene with five characters. the plan is to light them individually (for control) and the backround. So yes, you would get like 3 to 5 lights per character and then say five for the background. So we are talking about 30 lights.

As I recall it I would have to open the light properties and scrol the tab to each light and make my changes.

How about a Light Express menu? It would be user configurable. So say you want to have the light color, intensity ( a multiplyer basically), cone and penumbra angles (if a spot light) accessable at once for ALL lights.. with a user tabbed menu so that you can assign tabs to each character so that the List of lights wouldn't get so long. Selectin the light in the list would enable it to be edited in layout. A handy tool as well is a short cut button to view through the light.

Next would be the light and shadow assignment.. basically a list of all of the lights on one side and the surfaces in another, grouped by object. you select the lights on one side and the surfaces, or whole objects or groups, that get affected by it. Shadows would get their own listing, with the geometry side allowing for the self shadowing to be enabled.

I'm tired, I'll post more later...

SplineGod

11-01-2004, 09:27 AM

I have to do some more digging around in the new scene editor but it seems that a lot of that can be done there. Everytime I mess with it Im more impressed with what it can do. You can customize it to handle selection sets with columns set up to quickly change things like shadows , light settings and so on. That , in fact, may be the answer to some of my suggestions come to think of it. :)

Nemoid

11-01-2004, 10:48 AM

Great points Larry. i don't completely understand when u talk getting rid of bones. they are very useful as an item and they're in Maya too. I'd simply add the possibility that every object is a bone, so that u could just do like in max and use real pieces of mesh to build a good working skeleton, but i'd mantain current bones too.so u'll have the best of both worlds! another interesting thing i'd add are bones similar to messiah ones. with different influence zone of bones on geometry that require no weight maps, yet you haven't to go mad when rigging positioning bones. they simply work better. (yes, in Lw u can use no weight maps, but rigging is more difficult than Messiah)

objects as lights is great thing wich i am waiting for long time :D

This is going to sound controversial but-

I strongly recommend merging the .LWO and .LWS file formats into one unified format. So you could put points and polygons into "scene" files and keyframes and expressions into "object" files. LW started heading in this direction when they made object layers appear in Layout as independent items. This is the logical conclusion. It would help my workflow tremendously. This doesn't mean unifying Layout and Modeler; you could keep them separate, just unify the file formats.

I always thought having separate files for objects and scenes is a great help in mantaining scene files size very small compared to other apps like Maya and Max. i see that there's actually the possibility to merge modeler and Layout, but having different possibilities to store files so that u'll have the best of both worlds :
one environment, but good advantages when working with those files.

in facts , one thing is when the app(let's say layout )works on the objects- in fact u have a save all objects function too) and another thing is storing files on disk.

with the current scene file, wich contains pointers to final objets and other things like textures and so on, u have very small and better organized scene files and u can store geometry as a separate file .lwo so thet u don't loose them if some problem happens.

however, if a complete merging of files type is really needed to merge properly layout and modeler and for allowing lw to be compatible with apps like Maya, i'd not be the one who complains at all :D

SplineGod

11-01-2004, 04:02 PM

Nemoid,
Thats what I was saying...just get rid of bones as some kind of separate item. Just let bones be another object property or lights. :)

DMaas,
I would say give up both. If I want to save things as separate files let me or if I want a 3rd type of file format (unified) let me have that option too. :)

Nemoid

11-01-2004, 04:23 PM

Nemoid,
Thats what I was saying...just get rid of bones as some kind of separate item. Just let bones be another object property or lights. :)
IMHO getting totally rid of current bones is an error. i dunno about max, but maya and xsi currently have them. having both options is the best solution.

different ways to do the same job.

DMaas,
I would say give up both. If I want to save things as separate files let me or if I want a 3rd type of file format (unified) let me have that option too. :)
yay
i agree totally!! an option to save them as an unified format can be handy too. :D

SplineGod

11-01-2004, 05:05 PM

My point in saying get rid of bones is that theres no advantage to keeping them a separate item type. Skelegons are objects that get converted to bones. Objects can be parented to other objects while bones cannot. Why not just allow objects to be defined as bones so you get the advantage of bones and objects in the same item. This would also allow the geometry of the bone/object to be used for other things as well such as muscle effectors or collision objects.

dmaas

11-01-2004, 08:08 PM

It would be really, really nice to be able to parent bones to an item outside the boned objects' hierarchy. (you can do this with a plugin like Worley's Parent today, but it's awkward)

Also a toggle option not to inherit the parent's transform (as in Maya) would be useful.

Nemoid

11-02-2004, 11:26 AM

My point in saying get rid of bones is that theres no advantage to keeping them a separate item type. Skelegons are objects that get converted to bones. Objects can be parented to other objects while bones cannot. Why not just allow objects to be defined as bones so you get the advantage of bones and objects in the same item. This would also allow the geometry of the bone/object to be used for other things as well such as muscle effectors or collision objects.
ok, this would be very good indeed, maybe even better then other apps but what about teh current tools we have in lw 8 concerning bones?

another thing i am wondering is what about some compatibility between Lw and other packages like Maya and XSI that have bones.

Would be cool if bones or even bones as objects as you say , could be a standard way to work in any major app so that exchanging datas and scenes with rigged chars would work preoperly.

maybe this would work better with objects than bones?

however having bones as objects is a cool idea, especially if it speeds rigging and aanimation, having the possibility to animate the "bones" wich are shaped as real low poly geometry and work both like bones and template.
if rigging tools remains the same it's a really good solution.

BigJay

11-02-2004, 01:57 PM

Along with combining menus for camera and render also add the image filters as a tab since it is a pain to go hunting in a 3rd place for something that is needed to get a render to work. You could even put render and image filters as tabs on the camera.

Make the to render file properties the same as the one in the filter menu. Why do i need to add a filter to get correct rla channels.

Add more channels as render export options beyond the alpha channel. make a new panel with all the channels as files that can be saved

Make lights and particles a seperate channel so they can be composited back in.

It seems from what a few others have said that consolidating controls would help. Hunting in multiple locations is pain. I like to go to one place to find everything I need to complete a task. I would rather have a panel duplicated in 6 places than have to hunt it down, but there has to be a way to consolidate information into one place.

One thing that would help is the whole image filter panel being removed and the appropriate plugin list moved to where they belong. camera related plugins in the camera, image related plugins moved to the texture panel so it can be made more powerfull, as well as a scene plugin. Sasquatch and any other plugin like it should AUTOMATICALLY load the apropriate image filter plugin or the sdk adjusted to allow this to be done by the plugin. I like the idea of plugins loading everything they need to work and removing the additional plugins when I remove them.

KOryH

11-02-2004, 05:33 PM

how about a preview thumbnail for objects and scenes.
so when you are looking for stuff in the file browser you actually know what you are seeing.
like what the hell is ford_car_001.lwo
thumbnail
AAHHH yes that's what I want.

SplineGod

11-02-2004, 10:30 PM

I like the translational and rotational handles on items. I would love to be able to also see other information as well. Id love to see little tiny icons or something on those handles that would pop up information when the mouse moved over it that could also tell me what plugins, expressions etc. that were attached to that item.

thirstydevil

11-02-2004, 10:55 PM

Modeler
1) Edges
2) Ngons
3) Fall off tool that is more like a select connected - IE not a volume based sperical falloff
4) Better dragnet tool. IE LMB (poly's) MMB (Points) RMB (u guessed it EDGES)
5) Customisable HotBox and interface. In addition to the middle mouse button menus
6) To be able to have any window show the Sub-D solution without having to use TAB.
7) oooh and proper Sub Division please....
8) Better selection Sub mode. Like Wings Tweak or CM4D (that has ripped off wings)
9) Speed INCREASE in OGL. It's so slow... Come on.
10) UV mapping need fixing. Look to Maya or XSI. There is so much here that I could write an essay.
11) Fix UV Sub-D error
12) Better UI. IE RMB on Layers would give u sub options (Rename etc)
13) Put all the tools in one place. IE all cut tools (bandsaw, daz etc) could be under one button (Accessable by RMB from multiply and also could be shortcut to keyboard. LMB would bring up a proper panel with each tool in a tab and the configs.
14) Fix Symerty tool. It's bad. Look to Wings.
15) Ooooh Point bevel!
16) Shift G (err snap tool - should have the option to weld automaticaly)
17) Snaping modes. EI with this on you could rotate a poly around a point, or snap a point to a edge and move it along it. thousands of things that are plugins at the minute slowing workflow. Standard snapping modes could be (poly, Edge, point, Grid, Background) with a sub button that does Group, Centre of Sel and on and on and on
18) Intergrate C-plane (Better of course - into the interface... like modo)
19) Verti bevel is the best. Should be standard
20) Curve edit mode. You could draw a curve and use it to.... staighten out a pipe or bend a wall... Sort of like a soft edit or u could use any low poly object.
21) Do away with skelegons... introduce a setup mode in modeler that is editable after it has been Setup in layout.... Like PMG Messiah.
22) Speadsheet for Modeler... why not.
23) Weight map painting.... for character setup. Like XSI... that means I want to be able to rotate the upper leg and the lower at once and edit the weight maps.
24) A corrective Morph mode. So I can bend the charater in Layout or Modeler, hit this button and I'm in a morph mode for bone deformation. I can see the character in it's deformed position and do the morph. Nuf said.
25) Drag and drop. On anything... for moving panels, loading objects...
26) rest on object. Take a layer full of objects. it gets each parts lowest point and moves each part to the forground layers coresponding poly. Like Hard body dynamics would do without all the bounce gravity and stuff. Rough and ready drop and ground. (Could be in the snap menus)

I'll think about Layout and get back to you tommorrow when I'm using it at work...

Cheers

David

astrofra

11-05-2004, 11:34 AM

About the neverending issue :)
- Keep Layout & Modeler separated on a user point of view
- Put Layout & Modeler together on a system point of view

I see smthing like a single but multi-threaded application.

Benefits :
- get rid of the HUB
- Layout & modeler would be independent threads
- Communication would be FASTER & SEAMLESS between them.
- Modeling would still be possible during render

Lightbringer

11-10-2004, 05:08 PM

1. one application to rule them all. other people have already espoused the advantages of proper integration of modeler and layout, so i won't.

2. multi-pass rendering.
-get rid of the 'Save RGB', 'Save Alpha' under Render Options. get rid of all the image filters that export various things to various file formats. replace the lot with a single interface for setting up render output. allow the user to create a 'pass'. the user then chooses which buffers go into this pass (full RGB, just spec, just reflection, depth, motion, etc.). the user then chooses a file format and filename for this pass. the user specifies a frame range for this pass. then it's a simple matter of turning that pass on or off at render time. and here's the best part... define an arbitrary number of passes for a scene. oh, the time-saving glory of it!

-if you want to get ambitious, allow passes to also contain object and surface-specific information (make some objects matte objects for a given pass, dissolve objects, etc.).

ThePumpkinKing

11-10-2004, 05:19 PM

Something that would really help workflow (for me atleast) is a modo-level of GUI customization.

Para

12-03-2004, 07:54 PM

I have to bump this thread because I just thought of something related:

What I've always found annoying is that there's a couple of tools to do stuff like beveling single or multiple polygons (bevel, smoothshift, supershift, maybe even extrude could be mentioned here) so what I'd like to see is simply more options in existing tools. For example I'd kill for a small addon feature in Disc Tool that would give me an option to make it only a 90/180/270 degree or full disc for some wacky arch shapes and such and of course also a possibility to select the angle by myself. This should of course include a selection whether or not I like to keep the bottom polygon or not.

SplineGod

12-03-2004, 09:43 PM

I completely agree. Modeler has way too many overlapping tools. Cutting tools are another thing that need to be collapsed. :)

DigiLusionist

12-05-2004, 05:49 AM

The ability to capture Previews of animation clip actors as Thumbnails within a layers type window. And, the ability to organize the thumbnails according to body part(s), and/or action type.

THEN, the ability to drag and drop the thumbnail onto the timeline, where the timeline indicator currently is to place the keyframed animation onto the appropriate body part(s).

AND, the ability to scale the animation in its entirety prior to and after applying the thumbnail to the timeline.

PetterSundnes

12-11-2004, 03:45 PM

I think LW plugins should become similar to the way skins are applied to WinAmp. You have a zip file with a different extension to it say lwz, and this contains the actual plugin, default settings, icons and help files. When a .lwz file is pressed be it as a hyperlink or as a local file on the harddrive, it should be automatically downloaded / installed. On installation it could extract, give the user a choice of using the default suggested install folder, or direct it to its own place, and the same with placement inside the LightWave menu.

LightWave itself, should become "content-less" and have all plugins and features as external modules, not embedded into the application. Why? Easier to update and to change parts of the application without going into the core.

LW could also be available as a download only software, with just the basic plugins installed, and all other plugins available online, with a micro tutorial (animated screen capture) next to it, so the user can see what it does, before downloading it. Then NewTek would be saving the cost of printing books and shipping (but increased bandwith usage), the price could drop sub 1000 us$

Another issue is to gather up all free plugins ever made (similar to what flay.com offers), but hosted by NewTek, in wrapped up ".lwz" files, autmatically installing as described earlier. This is ofcourse if the author of the plugin accepts it.

Oh, and for NewTek to get some more business around LW, offer a payment system for commercial plugins.

the other night i worked for 3 hours straight on a model, and then used the incremental save, which created a file called myobject_v001.lwo

last night i made the simple mistake of opening the original object file "myobject" and through absentmindedness chose to incremental save it, thinking "well I will make changes now, so I should work on a new version of it".

Before I realized what I had done, without any warning the incremental save saved a new file over the one that I had been working on for 3 hours straight, and i lost all the progress I had made.

so PLEASE make the incremental save ASK if it is okay to write over a file, INSTEAD OF JUST BLINDLY OVERWRITING IT!

Sorry, but I am a little unhappy about my lost work.

thiaml

12-16-2004, 10:22 PM

the other night i worked for 3 hours straight on a model, and then used the incremental save, which created a file called myobject_v001.lwo

last night i made the simple mistake of opening the original object file "myobject" and through absentmindedness chose to incremental save it, thinking "well I will make changes now, so I should work on a new version of it".

Before I realized what I had done, without any warning the incremental save saved a new file over the one that I had been working on for 3 hours straight, and i lost all the progress I had made.

so PLEASE make the incremental save ASK if it is okay to write over a file, INSTEAD OF JUST BLINDLY OVERWRITING IT!

Sorry, but I am a little unhappy about my lost work.

or give you an option to turn off incremental save in the preferences. i'm persoanally is not a big fan of incremental save.

peteb

01-18-2005, 05:54 PM

I want a gizmo in Modeller. I want to be able to align it to polys I've selected and be able to move them along their normal angle.

PetterSundnes

02-11-2005, 04:25 PM

Incremental save working like this:

You create a model file name "myMod.lwo". You do an incremental save and Modeler creates a "myMod_incr" folder next to the file, this folder will then contain the file "myMod_v001.lwo". For each time you press incremental save, you get another file inside the incremental folder "myMod_v002.lwo" and so on, but the actual file you are working on is still the original "myMod.lwo" next to the incremental folder. If the program assumes it is going to use the filename "myMod_v002.lwo" and that filename exists, then do an automatic search for the next available number such "myMod_v003.lwo" NEVER overwrite an earlier version (as pointed out by others on this forum).

Para

03-04-2005, 10:08 AM

I'm toying with TB_ShaderTree at the moment and I just came up with a workflow enhancement:

I'm rendering quite a heavy shader at the moment with PLD7 and it's now at 4/7 passes. What I'd like to do is to stop the render now but get the result that was rendered so far to Image Viewer as if the rendering process had finished. That way I could see the high resolution result of my render and see if I really like it or not.

PetterSundnes

08-08-2005, 12:57 PM

### doubleclick to enter model ###
Lets steal something from Flash :) Doubleclick a model (compare it to a MovieClip inside Flash), and you will "enter it". You then have access to features such as modifying points, polygons and edges, as well as other more typical Modeler features such as bones setup and weightpainting.

### context sensitive tools menu ###
Depending on what you select (a model, a polygon, a light), the tools available to modify it with will change as well. This way you would only have the tools you need for the currently selected items.

### context sensitive geometry/element menu ###
As of today LW has a property window that changes when different elements has been clicked. This could be taken further and work for absolutely every single modifyable element (down to the properties of points: local/global position, used by polygon [2,4,7]...)

Gif anim of "entering and exiting" a model

PetterSundnes

08-22-2005, 10:39 AM

When a selection of polygons has been copied and the user "exits" the model and tries to paste the polygons, he/she actually create a new model with the copied polygons inside it.

Copy some points/edges/polygons inside one model, doubleclick outside it, doubleclick another model to "enter" it and paste the copied elements.

This way it wouldnt be any need for layers the way they work today (a flat list).

4dartist

08-26-2005, 04:52 PM

I dont think this was said but if so, sorry.
These are comments about LW8.3

1. Making Gradients Animatable... I feel held back because of that. Always using work arounds that take a lot of time, to get the same effect i could with a few mins of keying a gradient.

2. On expert level alerts, for the love of god, please tell layout to stop asking me "Do you want to set the render end frame to the slider end frame. Yes or No. I'm an expert remember! I do a lot of F10's on low settings it gets so tiresome, or atleast, a Check if you NEVER WANT TO SEE THIS AGAIN option.. Maybe there is more important fixes than this, but hey i thought i would throw it out there.

3. When using "Save All Objects" Is it possible to have layout double check that the file your saving isn't older than the file on the harddrive? If so then promp "Are you sure you want to save over a newer file." Again something avoidable, but would be nice. For this to work i guess, when you load the scenes, and layout looks for the models it would have to record the model files last edit date, and refresh that when you are saving it in modeler etc. Then compair that date to the one of the file when saving out all models from layout.

Just some ideas. Not biggies, but important to me! 8)

Benjamin

RorrKonn

08-26-2005, 06:45 PM

integrated modeler n layout.
make the UI 100% customizable.
so we could make any UI we wanted.

I dont think this was said but if so, sorry.
These are comments about LW8.3

2. On expert level alerts, for the love of god, please tell layout to stop asking me "Do you want to set the render end frame to the slider end frame. Yes or No. I'm an expert remember! I do a lot of F10's on low settings it gets so tiresome, or atleast, a Check if you NEVER WANT TO SEE THIS AGAIN option.. Maybe there is more important fixes than this, but hey i thought i would throw it out there.

You can use the ultra-expert level to get rid of this (and many other) yes/no requesters.

Command Input, "AutoConfirm 1"

But it affects all yes/no popups, so it's probably too powerful.

Turn it off with "AutoConfirm 0"

telamon

08-27-2005, 12:34 PM

@petterns, your request is very close to the workflow in major CAD programs (e.g. Catia, Solidworks, Pro-Engineer). I really second it.

zareh

10-17-2005, 06:54 AM

Have the ability in Layout to point to a motion file for
an object/camera/light. This way if several people are
working on the motions of different objects in the
same scene file, anyone can load the scene and be
sure they have the latest motion files for all the
objects in the scene from everyonee.

Another use for this would be if there are several
scene files that are about the same thing. For example
a scene file that has the foreground objects, one
that has the background objects, one that has
the starfield, one that has the planet etc. If one
modifies the camera motion in one of these scene
files then all the others need to have the camera
motions updated as well. If there was an automated
way of doing this in Layout -and- screamernet
it would be great. For example having an LScript
that went and loaded a motion file for an object
as soon as a scene is loaded into layout or
screamernet.

Zareh

GaryDXD

03-28-2006, 05:14 PM

1. INTEGRATE Modeler/Layout.
I know this is in the works. It just has to be done.

2. Better layer management in Layout

3. Better render pass management and export tools

4. Faster OpenGL in Layout and Modeler

5. Better Anti-Aliasing

jeremyhardin

03-28-2006, 05:54 PM

a bit late I suppose, but it's there.
http://jeremy.lwidof.net/lscript

reference motion and reference camera.

Have the ability in Layout to point to a motion file for
an object/camera/light. This way if several people are
working on the motions of different objects in the
same scene file, anyone can load the scene and be
sure they have the latest motion files for all the
objects in the scene from everyonee.

Another use for this would be if there are several
scene files that are about the same thing. For example
a scene file that has the foreground objects, one
that has the background objects, one that has
the starfield, one that has the planet etc. If one
modifies the camera motion in one of these scene
files then all the others need to have the camera
motions updated as well. If there was an automated
way of doing this in Layout -and- screamernet
it would be great. For example having an LScript
that went and loaded a motion file for an object
as soon as a scene is loaded into layout or
screamernet.

Zareh

PetterSundnes

10-16-2006, 02:42 PM

I just discovered that Open Office's .odt format is actually a zip file containing xml files (just like Winamp skins are bitmaps in a zip archive). I know it has been discussed before, but ill say it again: lets see a LW format for models, scenes, animation++, that is fully XML (deeper in definition than Collada so all of LW's setups can be saved), relative paths (no more set-content-folder-hell), zippable as an option to make selfcontained project files.

jeremyhardin

10-16-2006, 02:51 PM

... relative paths (no more set-content-folder-hell)...

Agreed, but optional relative paths. IMHO, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to specify either absolute or relative on a global and per-file basis.

PetterSundnes

10-16-2006, 06:16 PM

yes, optional would be good, just to be safe :)

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